Expat author pens books

A globetrotter is back in town and this time he brought books.

John Curran grew up in Waupaca but has spent much of his life living abroad. He recently wrote a trilogy of books titled, “Misfit: Stories from a Life Unexpected” under the pen name Mister John. All three books were published simultaneously this past September.

He has plenty of stories to tell. The three volumes are a collage of his life experiences. He graduated from Waupaca High School in 1981. Curran is the son of Mary Jane Nispel, a long-time English teacher.

He spent the next 10 summers as the captain of the sternwheel paddleboat Chief Waupaca at Clearwater Harbor. That is how he paid his way through college and graduate school as he studied architecture and economics.

Upon completing his studies, he scrambled to find work. Through a serendipitous connection through his former high school math teacher, he scored a job as a computer and math teacher at United Arab Emirates University.

“Sometimes it is who you know. I went home with a contract in my hand, got home, called up family and friend and nobody would believe me: ‘You’re going where?’” said Curran.

A year later he taught on the women’s campus, one of the first unmarried Western men ever allowed to do such a job. He later transferred to another college where he met a Canadian woman named Sue. Curran continued to work in computer and math education. He lived in the UAE and Dubai for a total of 14 1/2 years.

In 2007, Curran and Sue made a radical change: they moved to Ecuador. They bought a riverfront property off a dead-end dirt road in the mountains near Vilcabamba.

“Before I met her, I’d been looking for a place to go on vacation and one day that might be my retirement place as well. I’d been looking all over: south Asia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Mediterranean countries, places with nice weather. The first trip we made as a couple we went to Spain to look at properties but that didn’t work out. She thought I was nuts but she came around and thought it was a pretty good idea,” said Curran.

He pointed out the benefit of being in the same hemisphere where both of their families live.

“It’s not the physical difference. It’s the time distance. She was 11 hours different from her family in Calgary. It seems like you’re way, way far away. But living in Ecuador, where the same time zone as here in Waupaca,” said Curran.

They got married in 2013. Ten years later, they bought a property on the Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Columbia, Canada.

His books can be ordered through his website www.misterjohn.me and other online sellers. Locally they can be found at the Book Cellar.